Identification and Authentication

Abstract

A previous chapter (Chap. 2) focused on some of the more important and general questions that archaeologists ask about the past – what our ancestors were like, how they lived, what they ate, what sort of environment they inhabited, what kinds of things did they do, their relationships with other people, religious beliefs and ceremonies, and many others. There are many ways that archaeologists try to answer those questions – many perspectives, many ideas, many methods, and many subdisciplines. Fieldwork provides the basic information in the form of artifacts and a variety of other materials that humans buried, abandoned, or lost. Specialists in archaeozoology, archaeobotany, bioarchaeology, geoarchaeology, ceramic and lithic analysis, architecture, and more work to describe and understand the materials that are recovered in excavation and other types of fieldwork.